AFTER several meetings with officers from the Aliens Investigation Unit, a former garda who is wanted for questioning by the Garda left South Africa for Brussels last night.
He is wanted for questioning in connection with an alleged assault on two women last year.
Having established his right to leave voluntarily and unaccompanied, he boarded a Sabena flight without a police escort less than four hours before the expiry at midnight of his temporary permit to be in South Africa.
The permit was given after his original visa had expired - he entered South Africa as a tourist last September - and he had been arrested and held in police custody and was in the process of being deported under police escort last month.
His lawyer, Mr Gary Eisenberg, declined to say whether the former garda would travel directly from Belgium to Ireland. However, he did say: "He intends to return to Dublin as soon as possible."
Mr Eisenberg had accused South African police, working with the Garda and Interpol, of attempting to impose a disguised form of extradition on his client until they backed down and agreed to allow him to return voluntarily via a route of his choice.
Speaking on the alleged attempt to "extradite" his client, Mr Eisenberg asked rhetorically whether this meant that he should have been returned to Ireland or Europe, noting that the former garda was "a citizen of Ireland but a national of the European Union".